Slut
by nine miles to go
Summary: Brittany isn't stupid, but she's sure made a lot of mistakes. Is Will Schuester one of them?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

Author's Note: The main character of this is Brittany. And I know she's always portrayed as really stupid in the show, and this is just sort of a take on why-like, maybe she isn't stupid so much as distracted by other things going on in her life. I tried to stay true to her by keeping her just as blunt as she usually is in the show, but as far as stupidity you will find she's a tad OOC. I hope you enjoy anyway.

* * *

Slut

Brittany's mother kicks her out on a Wednesday night. She's sitting on the floor, absentmindedly stretching in front of the television, when her mother crashes through the front door of the dinghy house, drunker this time than she was when she kicked Brittany out last month.

As she stumbles over to the couch Brittany barely moves, suspended in a toe-reach. She knows that it's useless—that anything she does is going to set the woman off, if she moves out of the way now or if she stays here all night—but still, she freezes, with the childish hope that maybe she'll blend into the furniture and her mother will leave her alone.

Her mother flops on the couch and for a few minutes Brittany glues her eyes to the television screen, focusing all of her attention on a rerun of some sitcom while the anticipation rises.

"You're a slut."

Brittany almost relaxes. She's been waiting to see what it is her mother will pick on her for and this is topic that Brittany doesn't take to heart. After all, like mother, like daughter.

"So are you," Brittany says airily.

"How—how dare you," her mother stammers, and it all escalates from there. Within ten minutes several dishes and a lamp are smashed on the floor, and Brittany is standing on the sidewalk with a cut lip, a black eye, and a suitcase she's had packed for months.

She hits the first number on her speed dial and Santana answers on the second ring. "What's up?"

"Santana."

Brittany wonders what it is she's done to deserve Santana when the girl on the other line sighs sympathetically and says, "Meet me at the gas station. I'll be right over."

By the time Brittany reaches the station a few blocks from her house she's soaked to the bone and she knows her bag isn't faring much better. Santana pulls up in her monstrous car and lets her inside and for a moment they sit there in silence in the parking lot, listening to the rain beat the windows.

Santana touches the side of Brittany's face. "Oh, Brit," she says. "Brit."

Brittany purses her lips and says, "I don't think I'm going back this time."

"Good." Santana starts the car up again and squeezes Brittany's knee as they pull out of the lot. "You'll stay with me."

* * *

The next morning Brittany is listless and edgy and, if possible, even less attentive in class than she usually is. When Mr. Schuester passes back their Spanish papers she doesn't even look up until she sees the bright red "F" staring up at her on the desk. She flinches even though she knew that was the grade when she turned it in last week, and Mr. Schuester whispers, "See me after class."

She forgets to stay after. It isn't an act of rebellion so much as an act of carelessness, and it doesn't even cross her mind until she's at glee rehearsal and Mr. Schuester stares at her from across the room with his rather large eyebrows knit in disapproval.

After rehearsal she walks over to Mr. Schuester without being reminded and he sits them down by the piano and doesn't talk until they're completely alone.

"You know that you're failing my class."

Brittany nods and fidgets uncomfortably, wondering how long this is going to take.

"Well?" he prompts her.

She shrugs. "I'll . . . try harder," she says noncommittally.

"Brittany."

"What." She doesn't mean to sass him but it sure sounds that way, even to her, and Mr. Schue snaps his head up in surprise. He searches her face, and she's about to mumble an apology when she notices his gaze lingering on her lip and the black eye Santana had cleverly covered with make-up this morning.

"Hey," he says softly, his tone completely changed. "Is . . . everything alright at home?"

She looks at him, dumbfounded. No teacher has ever bothered to ask that before.

"Uh." After a moment she shakes her head and says hastily, "Yes, yeah, why?"

"Brittany." He says her name again and it's clear he doesn't believe her—she can tell.

Something about it makes her heart race. Her mother has always been her burden to bear, the secret she has most fiercely protected, the shame she couldn't bear to expose. She has lied about the alcoholism and the constant fighting since her dad left them when she was twelve. Santana is the only person she ever told, and even her best friend knowing about it makes her feel vulnerable and somehow unworthy.

But this is new. Usually she can lie or make an excuse about cheerleading accidents and people will swallow it like apple juice, because she knows by now that people would rather believe that everything is sweet as can be than see the ugly truth.

Will Schuester's concerned gaze is different from all the others she's met and dismissed. He seems like he really cares—not that he's just asking because he's obligated to. And it's been a long, long time since anyone, particularly a man, has looked at her that way.

It makes her want to spill everything and shatter every carefully constructed lie she has spent years building around her like a fortress.

It would be so easy to tell him, she thinks. To tell him—a strong, capable adult, someone who has much more power to help her than she does herself. Someone who would genuinely care what happens to her, would take care of her. Somebody who would make everything okay.

She isn't naïve and she isn't stupid, despite what people think of her. Will Schuester can't fix an alcoholic. And if he interferes not only will she be exposed to the entire school, she might lose her mother forever.

It's only two years before she goes to college. She can handle this.

"Santana's waiting for me in the car," she says in a quiet voice, slowly getting up from the piano bench and extricating herself from the conversation.

Mr. Schuester gets up, too, following her to the door. Two steps away from the hall he lightly grabs her by the crook of the elbow, so she is forced to turn her body and look at him.

"You can tell me. Whatever it is," he says earnestly. "I can help."

It strikes her how he looks almost like a little boy, in the way he is so naïve for thinking he can really fix things for her. And she is thinking of how wonderful it is to have somebody in this world who cares about her this sincerely when she grabs him right back, presses his chest up against her, and kisses him.

He stiffens and tries to pull away but she tugs back with all the force she can muster. She needs this. It feels like all of the desperation pent up inside of her has burst into this passionate, fervent, reckless act—she's been doing this for ages, ignoring the whispered remarks about her promiscuity in exchange for some sort of escape, but no other boy at this school has come close to the complete togetherness and synchrony she feels kissing Will Schuester in the middle of the choir room.

She pulls away first. Then they break apart, regarding each other as if they've only just met for the first time, panting and gasping and staring.

He comes to his senses with a low moan. "Oh, God." He runs a hand through his hair and when he looks at her again he flinches. "That . . . that was a mistake. I'm so sorry."

"Don't," she whispers.

He's rejecting her. It's like riding a rollercoaster and falling off. It aches on her chest like a pile of rocks. She looks at him for one moment more, how speechless and shaken he is, and decides not to wait to listen to more of his regret. With a swish of her Cheerios skirt she's out the door and is every bit as disillusioned as she was when she walked in the hour before.

* * *

Yeah, it's a little out there. I hope you enjoyed it anyway. More to come later. Reviews plz? Maybe? No? Eh, okay.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

* * *

Slut

On Friday she skips school. She wakes up feeling like she was hit by a bus and just lays there on the extra bed in Santana's room, staring hopelessly at the ceiling, cringing when she thinks of what happened the day before. When it comes time to leave Santana kisses her on the forehead and says "Feel better" before leaving her alone in the dark.

It's a long time before she wakes up again. Her cell phone is blaring on the dresser and she races for it, thinking it must be her mother. Whenever this happens the woman usually comes to her senses and calls with big, dramatic, sloppy apologies, begging Brittany to come home.

She doesn't recognize the number and immediately feels her stomach drop in disappointment. The exhaustion settles back in, heavy on her shoulders, and she picks up the phone without answering it and creeps back under the covers.

The same strange number calls her again. "Fuck," she groans, her voice hoarse from sleep, and she picks it up with an accusatory sounding, "Hello."

There's silence on the other end. She's about to hang up when she hears a man's voice say, "Brittany?"

Her jaw juts out angrily. "How did you get this number?"

Mr. Schuester sighs. "Your emergency contact form."

"Why are you calling me?"

"You weren't in school today."

"So?"

"So . . . I was worried about you."

She stiffens, holding herself straight as a rod. "I'm fine. Goobye, Mr. Sch—"

"Don't hang up. Please."

For some reason she obeys, but she doesn't speak for a while. Every shred of good judgment she has left is screaming at her to hang up the phone but she just sits there, mouth agape, pressing it to her ear like a lifeline.

"Dammit," Mr. Schuester mutters.

"No, I'm still here."

"Oh." His relief and surprise is audible through the static. "Look, Brittany. We need to talk about what happened. I feel awful."

Her gut wrenches. She's already humiliated enough. His shame only intensifies hers and she wishes she could hang up the phone and make yesterday disappear though sheer force of will.

"It didn't happen," she says, because she's said that a million times before, sometimes solemnly and usually with a suggestive gleam in her eye so the boys would want the same thing to "not happen" again.

She doesn't expect the bitter laugh in response. "God. You're just a kid."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she says, indignant.

"Nothing," he concedes. "Sorry. Just. Please, can we meet somewhere and talk?"

"We're talking right now."

"I want to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine," she insists a second time. The haze she has felt all day has somewhat cleared and she her voice is stronger and firmer than it was before. It's stupid, but when things like this happen she always tries to find the Sue Sylvester in her, the Brittany that won't take shit from people. It never seems to work.

"Can you just meet me somewhere? Like Breadsticks?"

She's about to say no. It's the sensible answer. The faster they can forget this, the better, and he is only prolonging the awkwardness of it. But then her stomach growls and she thinks about how she hasn't been out to eat in ages because she can't afford it. Pizza sounds nice.

"I don't have a ride," she says.

He hears him blow out a breath of relief. "I'll pick you up," he offers. "You live out by Sheets 'n Things, right?"

She shakes her head and remembers he can't see her. "I'm at Santana's house."

"Oh," he says, surprised. "Oh." And the second time he says it she hears the comprehension and the pity and she squeezes her eyes shut in embarrassment. "I'll be over in an hour or so, if that's alright."

"Okay," she says, hanging up the phone. She stares at it in the palm of her hand for a moment, then looks up blearily, catching sight of her smeared make-up and mussed hair, and moans, "Fuck."

* * *

It's raining again when Mr. Schuester's car pulls into Santana's massive driveway. Brittany climbs into his car, feeling somehow not herself as she sits there in an old pair of jeans and a top that she knows Santana doesn't wear anymore, with her hair all undone and wet from the shower instead of its usual high ponytail. He glances over at her and she stares straight ahead, watching the window wipers fling the water off the windshield.

They don't even speak until they're standing outside the restaurant. It's a Friday night and even from the parking lot she can see half of William McKinley High sitting in the roomy booths and tables.

"Mr. Schuester," she says.

He purses his lips. "You're right."

She shrugs, trying to seem indifferent, like nothing about this situation fazes her. "There's a McDonald's down the street."

"You mind?"

They cross the street in silence and walk into the McDonald's. He orders a Big Mac and fries and she orders a salad and they sit in a booth in the corner where nobody can see them from the road.

"That's all you're gonna eat?"

"I'm a Cheerio," she reminds him.

He pushes his tray toward her. "Have some fries."

She looks up at him when he says that, for the first time since he picked her up, and yet again something in his eyes sets her back. Something stirs in her chest and she wants to please him, wants to make him happy, because she sees that he cares and doesn't want to take it for granted. So she watches as her hand reaches forward and clutches at the fries.

They're delicious. She has almost forgotten how this feels.

He smiles at her, looking satisfied, and she can't help that her lips twitch upward in response. Then they both look down at their food, faces hot.

"So," he says, his voice low. "Tell me why you're at Santana's on a school day."

She tenses. She didn't expect him to discuss this. "Santana's my best friend."

"That doesn't answer my question."

For a few beats she just pushes her salad around with her fork, feeling the weight of his gaze on her. "Santana's got a nice house. I like it there," she mumbles.

Suddenly she feels his hand on her cheek and she flinches, gaping up at him in alarm.

"Somebody did this to you."

She shakes her head, and when he keeps his hand there she shakes it again, harder this time, until he puts the hand back down on the table. The way he's looking at her, so sure of his words, so certain and unabashed and honest, makes her want to crawl under the table like a little girl hiding from monsters.

"It's your mom, isn't it?"

"It—it was on the pyramid, I fell—"

"Brittany, I looked up your file. You've been in the hospital three times in the past year and a half."

She shifts uncomfortably. "I do clumsy things. I'm stupid. Haven't you realized that by now?" she says.

"You're not stupid," he says vehemently. "I don't know why you insist on putting up some sort of act, Brittany. You're a perfectly capable young woman."

She shoots him a snide look and leans forward. "You're just saying that because you're a teacher and you're supposed to."

"I'm saying it because I care about what happens to you and I can tell something is wrong," he says, his voice raising.

"How many times can I tell you that I'm _fine?_" she exclaims, completely exasperated. She falls back against the cold plastic booth, surprised at how fast the conversation escalated, feeling her heart thud in her chest and nervous sweat collecting at the seams of Santana's thin t-shirt.

He doesn't say anything for awhile, giving her some time to calm herself. "You don't sound fine," he says softly.

"I want to go back to Santana's."

He stares at her. Locks her eyes in his so intensely that she forgets to breathe. When he finally looks away he nods and says, "Of course."

They drive back and this time the silence is much more heated than it was on the drive there. Brittany clenches and unclenches her fists at her sides and watches out of the corner of her eye as Mr. Schuester fiddles with the radio. When they finally pull into Santana's empty driveway she's torn between the urge to bust out of the car and the desire to stay safe in this place she knows nobody will hurt her.

Her hand is on the car door handle when he touches her shoulder and feels an almost magnetic pulse between them. She freezes.

"I wanted to apologize. For what happened yesterday." He pulls his hand back and she relaxes, but only just barely. "I was out of line."

"It was my fault. I did it."

"I should have stopped you."

"You tried."

"But . . ."

"But you didn't," she says under her breath. "You didn't stop me. Why?"

He opens his mouth like a fish out of water. "I—"

She takes her hand off the door handle and shifts toward him, leaning ever so slightly in his direction. Immediately their dynamic has shifted and now he is the one looking at her with those wide, trapped eyes, as if she has charmed him like a snake.

"Why," she asks softly, leaning closer, "didn't you stop me?"

"Brittany," he breathes as a warning, but it sounds like permission, so she presses her lips against his.

This time he doesn't even attempt to stop her. It's every bit as intoxicating as it was yesterday, every bit as desperate and passionate, but it's different from before. Slower, sweeter—it's still raining outside, beating the windows, blurring the outside, but it feels like summer, kissing him. It feels like returning to a long lost dream, to some semblance of happiness she has long since forgotten.

She presses herself against him, clambers over the gearshift and straddles him in the driver's seat. Before she makes a conscious decision to do so she feels her fingers undoing the buttons of his collared shirt, feels him wriggling out of it and throwing it in the back seat. Her hands roam his shoulders, his back, digging into his skin because she needs so badly to know that he's real and that this is happening.

His hands are tangled in her hair and the more insistent she gets the further they slide down her neck and her waist, until she gets too impatient and tears the old shirt off herself. His touch against her bare skin feels different than anyone else's—reckless and thoughtless but so uncharacteristically _safe_, because she knows this man, she knows he won't hurt her, she knows he isn't using her like every other man she has encountered. In the delirium of their passion she lets herself believe that maybe Will Schuester loves her, that maybe this moment in the car is enough to fix everything that is wrong with her life, that he is the white knight come to rescue her from her misery.

She starts undoing his belt and he groans into her mouth. As soon as it's off she's starting for the zipper when he leans into her and her back hits the steering wheel so that the car horn rips an unholy noise.

He gasps in alarm and she lets out a little shriek. It's enough to shock them both out of their reverie. He grabs her shoulders and says, "We can't do this here."

"Your place," she gasps.

He nods and she stumbles back into the passenger seat, watching as he sets the car back in motion and speeds out of the driveway. Neither of them says anything but Brittany lets out a shrill, breathy giggle at the absurdity of this, at the anticipation, and Mr. Schuester just stares at the road with enough determination that he might be trying to manipulate every traffic light with his eyes.

They've made it about a mile when Mr. Schuester suddenly pulls into a random driveway, reverses, and heads back in the direction of Santana's house.

"What are you doing," she says even though she knows.

"You're a kid. We can't do this."

She rolls her eyes. For some reason this speech is particularly offensive coming from him, when she's still under this delusion that he understands her. "I'm sixteen."

"Sixteen . . ." He almost buries his head in his hands, but remembers to keep one of them on the wheel. "What was I thinking?"

"Mr. Schuester—"

"You're just confused, and I'm confused, and—"

"I'm not," she says, but he doesn't hear her, continuing his rant.

"You're practically a _baby_, you have no _idea_—"

"That's _bullshit_," she snaps, and this time he finally shuts up and looks at her. "What?" she throws the word into his astonished face. "What do you think, that I've never done this before? That you're taking advantage of innocent little Brittany who doesn't know any better?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I think," he shoots right back, "because you _don't_ know any better. Don't you see what this is? You have to deal with your life, Brittany, you can't just let me be another mistake—"

"Oh, Jesus, you already are a mistake," she hisses. She feels heat rising up in her cheeks, her eyes already starting to sting. "I thought you were different."

"I am different, Brittany. I'm not going to let you do this to yourself."

"Let me out of the car."

"What? No, I'm not letting you walk alone in this rain_—_"

"_Let me out of the car_."

He concedes and pulls over reluctantly. "Be careful," he yells as she slams the door in his face. She starts the half-mile trudge back to Santana's without looking back, and when she finally does and she sees that his car is out of sight she kicks the pavement, swears under her breath, and vows to never let him get that close again.

* * *

WOW, guys, I wasn't expecting such a positive reader response. Thanks for bearing with me on the craziness. I was so happy people liked it! And if it's any inspiration to review, TODAY IS MY NINETEENTH BIRTHDAY (you know, that age that really opens DOORS ... because there's, uh. so much that a nineteen year old can do that an eighteen year old can't. i'm sure) and basically a review would mean more to me than cake would. I'd make a joke about being a starving artist but I just thought of food and I'm cutting this off to get breakfast NOW.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

* * *

Slut

She considers quitting glee club but she doesn't have it in her. Brittany has gotten used to the idea of following Santana around, becoming the other side to her coin, and she knows if she quits it will ruin glee for Santana, too.

Santana can tell something is wrong when Brittany arrives back at her house drenched and fuming that night but she doesn't press her about it. That Saturday they board a flight to California for another Cheerios competition and it's a welcome distraction, the hotel rooms and hair spray and perfectly pressed uniforms hanging in the closet. She tells the bellboy she's a virgin and hooks up with him in the supply closet because it's nice to be in this new city, nice enough that she lets herself pretend to be somebody else.

They win the competition and board a plane back on Sunday afternoon, and it isn't until they land that Brittany gets the seven missed calls and three voicemails from her mother. She would listen but she knows her mother well enough by now to recite the contents of the messages like a monologue. The "I didn't mean it"s and the "you know I love you"s ending with the desperate pleas to "come back home," because "it'll be different, I promise I'll change".

Brittany doesn't fall for it. She's not stupid enough to believe her mother. She's just stupid enough to keep coming back anyway.

So by Sunday night she's moved all of her stuff back into her bedroom at home and is laying in her own ratty floral bedspread, listening to bottles clinking in the fridge from the kitchen.

A month passes and it's as if nothing has even happened. She rehearses with Glee in the afternoon and drills through Cheerios practices in the evening and goes home and eats a few pretzels in front of the TV before going to sleep. She's still flunking most of her classes. She still screws around any boy who so much as glances at her in a hallway.

The only difference is that in November she turns seventeen. Kurt and Mercedes bake her a cake (Santana and Quinn would have, but they're Cheerios and know better) and everybody sings to her in rehearsal. Everybody except for Mr. Schuester, who just stares at the seventeen lit candles on the cake as if it's the saddest thing he has ever seen.

A week later her mother remembers her birthday and gives her fifty bucks, which she immediately sticks in a fund she keeps hidden in the suitcase she keeps packed at the foot of her bed.

December rolls around and Brittany doesn't mind the pattern she has fallen back into. There's a part of her that aches whenever she sees Mr. Schuester but it's almost easy for her to ignore it now. She just moves on to another boy, another man, and even though it's _his_ face and _his_ body she's imagining beneath her, she is determined not to let her encounter with him hold her back in any way.

Her mother doesn't keep her promise, doesn't curb her drinking habit even a little, but she doesn't kick her out for two months and Brittany is secretly relieved she didn't tell Mr. Schuester the truth about the black eye and the cut lip. Her mother is improving. They don't fight nearly as much. To think, she would have put herself and her mother through so much trouble—for what? Nothing. They're fine. Everything is fine.

Until the beginning of December, when her mother finds a trashy boyfriend who spends too much time at their place. Brittany starts staying at Santana's because it makes her uncomfortable how the man looks at her—Robbie is his name, and just hearing her mother say it makes her skin crawl. She doesn't tell Santana about Robbie because it embarrasses her, just like everything else her mom does.

The first night of winter break she's asleep in her room when a noise wakes her up and she sees Robbie laying beside her.

"Shit," she shrieks, and he clamps a hand over her mouth.

"Shhh," he says calmly, like he's shushing a frightened animal. "It's okay, honey, it's just me."

She squirms and tries to cry out but he takes his other arm and pins her to the mattress. "Don't do this. Don't—I see the way you look at me, I know you want this. Your mom told me you love doing this kind of thing, she told me what a slut you were—"

Her fear and shock are paralyzing her, but the word "slut" sets her off and she is overwhelmed by her disgust and the need to escape. She thrashes, kicks, and tugs. It occurs to her to bite down on his hand and he screams "Fuck!" and she just screams out an unholy rip of noise from her throat, hoping somebody will hear her.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" he hisses. She feels the strap on her nightgown snap and the seams rip as he claws at her and her desperation intensifies.

"_Let go of me, let go!_" Her throat is tearing with effort. He smacks her in the face and she reels in pain, continuing to scream even as he beats on her. She curls into a ball and tries to shield herself, tries to figure out what to do. _What would Coach Sylvester do?_ she thinks, but his fist connects with her skull with a crack and she loses the trail of thought.

When his hands are under her nightgown and pawing at her something snaps, a second wind, and she knees him where it hurts and punches his nose upward like it showed in the self-defense video Quinn's mom made them watch in junior high. He howls and in his temporary haze of pain she twists herself out of his grasp and falls with a thud on the carpet.

"You _filthy—_"

_Smash!_

It's her mother, holding what's left of the lamp over her head. There are fragments of it scattered on her bedspread and all over Robbie's unconscious body. For a moment neither of them speaks, gasping and wheezing. Her mother sets down the lamp and Brittany lets out a low sob of remorse.

"I'm sorry," her mother whispers. "I'm so sorry. Brittany."

Brittany wordlessly reaches for the suitcase. Something drips onto the handle and she sees it's her own blood, hot and sticky and dripping down her face.

"Where are you going?" her mother asks, sounding concerned.

She doesn't answer. Just picks up her Cheerios jacket where she left it on the couch and slides it over her bare shoulders. Cold air blasts in her face the moment she opens the door and she walks out barefoot onto the icy cement.

"Brittany," her mother calls.

She pauses and stares at the shambled, broken woman, then closes the door behind her so gently it barely makes a sound.

Three blocks later she's shaking so hard that her knees buckle on someone's lawn and she just kneels there staring at the empty streets and the pattern of the streetlights hitting the pavement. She thrusts her cold hands into her pockets and by some lucky chance finds her phone. It doesn't take long to find the number she needs.

"Hello?"

He sounds groggy. She realizes he must have been asleep. She's about to hang up but instead she says in a small voice, "Can you come get me?"

She hears rustling on his end. "Brittany? Is that you?"

Her eyes well up with tears. She doesn't know what she was thinking, calling Will Schuester of all people in the middle of the night. It was a knee jerk reaction and she hates herself for it.

"I didn't know who else to call," she says, her voice cracking.

"Jesus, Brittany. Are you okay? Are you safe?"

She opens her mouth to answer but just hiccups uselessly into the phone.

"I'm coming to get you. Tell me where you are."

Somehow she chokes out the name of the streets at the intersection.

"Stay right there. Stay on the phone, okay? Don't hang up."

"Okay."

A few moments later she hears his car starting up and hears the whir of the crappy engine. She remembers where he lives from the glee club end-of-the-year party last June but she can't remember how far it is from her house, and even if she could her thoughts are too jumbled too even string together one coherent thought besides _get away from here._

"Are you still there?"

She sits down. The snow is freezing on her bare legs but it feels nice against the aching and stinging marks Robbie left her with.

"Brittany. Say something."

"I'm here," she says vaguely.

"Keep talking."

She laughs. It sounds dark and hollow, even to her. "I don't know what to say."

"Tell me what happened, then."

Her throat seizes. It's too humiliating, too raw in her memory, and talking about it will make it more scalding and permanent.

"Or something else," he says quickly. "Tell me how to conjugate the verb 'to run.'"

"Mr. Schuester," she deadpans. "I'm failing your class."

"You didn't fail Spanish 1 your freshman year."

"You remember that?"

"Of course I do. You've been in my class for three years."

She takes a deep breath and digs through the recesses of her mind—pushes past every terrible thing that has happened since she learned that stupid verb, and finds it in some distant, vast corner of untapped knowledge.

"_Correr_. To run," she recites in a shaky voice. "_Yo corro_. I run. _Tú corres_. You run." It sounds like a story. Like a rhythm. Like somebody read it to her when she was a child and now she's repeating it. "_Nosotros corremos_. We run. _Vosotros—v-vosotros_—"

There are tears streaming down her face. She touches her cold hand to her cheek, shocked by how fast they slide and how loudly they thud against her jacket.

"Come on, Brittany. You've got it."

"I—I can't."

"That's alright. Something else. We'll talk about something else."

"How close are you?" she asks childishly.

"A mile or so. Are you okay?"

"Thank you," she blubbers. "I don't know why I—but thanks."

* * *

Thanks for the reviews, guys! Sorry if the Spanish sucked, I used google translator to the best of my sad ability.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

* * *

Slut

He doesn't say anything for a moment. "I'm glad you called me. You know I'm always here for you." He pauses and corrects himself: "Any of you."

She isn't certain whether her head is moving because she's trying to nod or because she's rattling so violently from the cold. His words are meant to be a comfort, she knows, but she can't help but pick them apart—because he isn't always there for her, for months he has practically ignored her existence, and she suddenly she feels the urge to scream at him for time she has wasted wondering why she isn't good enough for him.

By the time he pulls up she barely even notices his car until he has stopped by the side of the road and slammed his front door shut behind him. She looks up from her perch on the ground, into his wide, worried eyes, and seeing his concern makes her cheeks hurt and her eyes sting until she suddenly feels her shoulders pitch forward in a wracking, uncontrollable sob.

"It's okay. I've got you. It's okay," he says. He grabs her hands and hoists her up to her shaky feet and guides her to the car. He braces her in his arms, holding her together, and she feels sort of like she's floating as he sets her into the passenger seat and crouches down on the sidewalk to assess her.

"Take my coat," he says, using it to cover her bare legs. Then he pushes her bangs back with her head and says, "You're bleeding."

She's crying too hard to respond coherently.

"I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No," she begs. "No, you can't. I'm fine. Please."

"Brittany—"

"Please don't make me—"

"It's okay. Trust me. We'll just let them fix you up—"

"No!" she screams the word and instantly regrets it when Mr. Schuester flinches as if she has smacked him. She knows he's only trying to help, that he has gone out of his way to do this for her and that he only wants the best, but he doesn't understand. If she steps foot in a hospital there is no going back. They'll demand to know what happened and no amount of clever, thwarting excuses will stop them from separating her from her mother and tearing both of their lives apart.

Mr. Schuester looks down at the sidewalk and takes a moment to brace himself for further protests, and when she doesn't say anything else he looks up cautiously. He sets a hand on her knee and says in that intense, confident way he always has, "You have to trust me. You called me because you trust me. Don't you?"

"Yes," she says in a small voice.

"You know the right thing to do is go to the hospital and call the police." He tilts his head and searches her face. "You know that."

Her eye contact with him is brief, because his eyes seem to sear hers and start a fresh wave of tears. She opens her mouth and tries to form rational words, tries to explain to him all of the complications and consequences, how he possibly can't understand that she's the only string keeping her mother together and she can't afford to snap. But all that comes out is, "I know. But Mr. Schuester. Please."

He sighs and takes another moment to look her over. She knows there are bruises forming and that her forehead is bleeding, that her nightgown is ripped beyond repair, but in all honesty she isn't that badly off. More shaken up than anything. She wills him to see this.

"Please," she says again.

He bites on his lip. A few excruciating moments pass before he nods reluctantly, and looks her dead in the eye. "But if I change my mind we are going straight to the hospital."

A breath of relief turns into another sob, and when she tries to smile shakily at him she is sure her lips are contorted beyond normal expression. He squeezes her hand and turns around to pluck her suitcase out of the snow and set it in the back of the car.

The silence in the car is only occasionally interrupted by a muffled sob or shudder until Mr. Schuester says, "Brittany . . . what happened?"

This time the question doesn't throw her off guard the same way it did before. In the beat after he asks she swipes at the stray tears on her cheeks and sits up straighter in the ragged seat. When she is sure she has given herself enough time to make her voice sound even she says, "I can't. Not right now."

So they spend yet another drive in silence. She remembers his place from the last time they were all gathered here, but it seems so different now without all of the other glee kids. She realizes what a lonely, empty place it is when it's not full of people. A lot of room for just one person.

He sets her suitcase down on the table in the living room. For a moment she just stares at the suitcase, feeling him stare at her. She's self-conscious, more so than she ever has been, standing in front of his television. She clutches his jacket between her fingers and feels her bangs sticky with blood and wonders what it is he sees when he looks at her.

She wants him to see Brittany. She wants him to see that she is a pretty, perfect, flawless cheerleader, and she wants him to look at her and remember that day in the car and relive it. But she can tell that he looks at her and sees somebody who is broken, and she is ashamed.

"You need to get cleaned up. I'll grab the first aid kit. The bathroom is right over there."

Her reflection is gruesome at best. Her forehead has stopped bleeding but the blood is sticky and dry on her face and in her hair, which is frazzled beyond the power of any aerosol can. There are several hand shaped bruises on her arms where he grabbed at her, and the seams of the nightgown are two or three undone stitches away from exposing her completely.

It makes her sick to look at herself. She is supposed to be the powerful one. The one in control of the situation. She has always associated her sexuality with power because since puberty she has been able to use it to get what she wants, but now everything is different, because it can't get her Will Schuester and it can't make her forget the awful, unimaginable thing that just happened.

Her mind is on autopilot when she turns the sink knob and starts to wash her face. She finally finds the source of it and thinks she must have hit her with his ring finger, or else it wouldn't have bled the way it did. Her comb is out in the suitcase and she's too nervous to go and retrieve it so she wets her hands and awkwardly tries to pat it down.

When she's finished she grabs the countertop with her hands and takes a deep breath, steadying herself. She can't take it back. All the years that led up to this. Maybe if she hadn't been such a slut, this wouldn't have happened. Maybe if she were normal. Or pretty like Quinn, so she could get what without giving everything away first. It's a cold, bitter truth, staring at herself in this mirror, without the power of her bright red Cheerios uniform or the glamour of everything that comes with it. She's so plain, so ordinary, and so stupid.

Mr. Schuester has a bandage ready for her forehead when she walks out. He sets her down on the couch and kneels next to her. It stings when he puts on the antiseptic and she flinches and blurts out, "It was my mom's boyfriend."

He puts down the first aid kit. "He did this to you?"

She nods and even though she feels tears threatening to spill again, she swallows them back. She's better than this. She has been trying to act like an adult and now she must face the adult consequences.

"I woke up in the middle of the night and he was just . . . there. In my bed." She can't face him when she adds, "He said I was a slut. So I would—so he thought he could—"

Mr. Schuester flies to his feet so fast she can't help but snap her head up to meet his eyes. They're blazing and furious and unbelievable. "He didn't—Brittany, if he—you have to tell me."

"No, no, he didn't. I got away before he . . ." She swallows hard enough to get the lump out of her throat but it doesn't work and she just looks at him helplessly.

He returns her gaze firmly. "Brittany. You are not a slut."

The way he says it so seriously makes her smirk unexpectedly. "I am."

"Brittany—"

"Mr. Schuester." The laughter slips out of her and sounds slightly hysterical. It's sharp and grating and she stops herself and says, "You don't have to say that. I know that I am."

"Well, I'm sorry that you think that way about yourself. Because I don't."

She shifts uncomfortably. Nobody has ever said that to her before and she doesn't know how to react. How, she wonders, do you thank somebody for a lie?

"Let me take care of that," he says, referring to the cut on her head. She tilts her head toward him and lets him fix her. Every so often she flinches and he apologizes and she apologizes for his apology.

At some point he is behind her, setting a bandage on her forehead, when she leans back and rests her head against his stomach. It occurs to her how natural and thoughtless this feels, how she has never trusted anybody like this before. She closes her eyes before she can see his reaction and risk shattering the moment. And while her eyes are closed she can imagine that this moment isn't completely stolen. That it belongs to her. That she has the right to feel this safe in this situation where everything is wrong.

"You're all set," he says huskily, a long time after he's finished.

Slowly she raises her head back up and she feels the ache in her arms and the sting of her head, and everything comes rushing back.

"You take the bed, I'll sleep on the couch," he says, awkwardly shifting his body away from her.

She shakes her head and stretches out on the couch. "I'm really fine right here."

He doesn't press the point, just nods at her and comes back with some blankets and a pillow. He's about to leave the room when she grabs his hand and stops him. "I was wrong before," she says. "You are different."

For a moment she thinks he might say something, from the way he lingers there and takes in a weighted breath, his stance poised with intention, but instead he just takes her hand and gently sets it back on the couch.

* * *

THANKEE for the reviews, promise there will be more ACK-SHUN (er, action) next time arounddd!


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

* * *

Slut

The next morning he's already awake and dressed when she blearily opens her eyes to Will Schuester's living room and the smell of toaster waffles. She doesn't move for a long time, unsure of how to handle this. She tries to convince herself that she hasn't done anything wrong, but the rush of last night's memory hits her with full force as she recounts every painfully humiliating moment, and she can't help but think that every move she made was a mistake.

She hoists herself up on the arm of the couch, every one of her muscles aching from last night's panicked struggle. Once she's sitting up she closes her eyes and tries for the life of her to convince herself that last night wasn't some sort of a nightmare.

The more she remembers the tighter she squeezes her eyes. The unmatched fear of Robbie on top of her, the adrenaline surge of his rotten breath warm on her neck—the sting of his blows and the shock of her mother's interference—the swell of desperation in her chest and the misery of the snow between her toes—she doesn't want to think about it, not for a second longer, and even when her eyes fly open in determination to stop her brain from reliving it she can't help but seize in her continuing fear.

In a dream state she throws her legs over the side of the couch and realizes she's still wearing nothing but her torn up nightgown and her Cheerios jacket. On the table is her suitcase, all packed up the way it has been for months, and when she unzips it and sees all the neat, folded contents of clean clothes and toothpaste and hair product she almost smiles to herself. Preparation has never been her strong suit, but she's always ready when it matters most.

Quietly she extracts and old pair of jeans and a t-shirt and tiptoes into the bathroom. She doesn't look at herself in the mirror when she changes because she doesn't want to see if there are any marks. Once she's all dressed she tears the brush through her hair, which is for once left in its natural, frizzy state. It's pointless to try and pat it down, and honestly she feels a little bit ridiculous even holding the notion of impressing Mr. Schuester after what happened the night before.

She feels uncharacteristically shy when she walks into the kitchen, but enters in her usual blunt way. He looks up from his coffee and she stares at him expectantly. He's the adult here and it's his job to break the silence.

"Morning," he says, his voice still hoarse from sleeping.

She scoots in and sits in one of his chairs. For a moment she wonders if it's where his wife used to sit, but she thinks he must have moved since then. "Morning," she responds.

It's painfully awkward. He pushes a plate of the toaster waffles in her direction and says, "There's butter on the counter over there," and the way he says it so casually, as if it's completely normal to have her in his kitchen the Tuesday before Christmas, makes her heart thud irrationally.

"Why did you listen to me last night?" she blurts.

His brow furrows. "What do you—"

"I mean, how did you know to—how did you know to listen to me? About not going to the hospital. Or the police."

He stares down at the kitchen table, suddenly somber again. She hopes she hasn't upset him and presses on.

"Most people wouldn't have listened. Most people wouldn't have understood."

Mr. Schuester sighs. "I should have taken you to the hospital, and we should have called the police."

For a moment she panics, fearing that in the light of day he'll have changed his mind. But he is still as a statue. She searches him, still a bit wary, when she says cautiously, "It would have ruined everything. I have to stay there. Until college. Or my whole future . . ."

She's thinking of Cheerios and college scholarships and even her friends in the glee club. Suddenly she so fiercely wants everything to be okay—she wants to just barrel through the next year and a half so she can live that free and easy life she's always wanted—and she wills Mr. Schuester to look at her and understand. She can't lose her life. She can't risk being put in foster care somewhere in the prime of her very existence.

When he finally looks up at her she sees something deeper than understanding in his eyes. "I know," he says. "I know what you have at stake."

She bites the inside of her cheek. It's inappropriate to ask, so she doesn't. "You know," she probes.

Their gaze doesn't break, his eyes level with hers, even as he very slowly nods.

"You don't have to tell me."

"It's okay," he says, but after that he doesn't tell her anything more about it. For some reason her chest aches for him. She has never considered Mr. Schuester as anything more than her teacher and now she's seen some inner core of him, some unfathomable depth that she's never seen even in the people closest to her.

"What I'm trying to say," he continues, "is that I didn't do the right thing last night. And you know that."

She tucks her hair behind her ears and says, "Yeah."

"I only did it because . . . I know what it will do to you. If everything changes now."

"I can handle myself," she chimes in, to try and convince him he's done the right thing, but he cuts her off.

"You can't. You think you can, but you can't. Isn't last night enough evidence?"

"Last night … was different—"

"It's different every time," Mr. Schuester interrupts, his voice suddenly so resigned and so defeated that she doesn't have the heart to argue with him any further. He picks up his coffee mug and fiddles with it without taking a drink. "It's going to be hard." His eyes focus on the mug's pattern and he traces them thoughtfully, unable to meet her eyes. When he speaks again she hears his regret. "You think I'm doing you a favor, but really, I'm just letting you suffer."

They're silent for a few beats. She doesn't want to speak again until he looks up because he seems lost in his own thoughts, but after awhile she tries to assure him. "I've got Santana," she says.

When he doesn't look up she says, a little less confidently, "I've got you."

His eyes meet hers and widen. She's caught him off guard and she can tell. She braces herself for his excuses or his doubts, braces herself because she knows he's going to let her down just like everybody else has.

"Yeah," he finally says. "You've always got me."

Brittany smiles and he smiles back, tentatively.

"And you promise me that if anything goes wrong, you'll call. Like last night."

She doesn't reply. Technically it isn't a promise—what little shred of pride she has left won't let her make that kind of a promise, that weak admission that she needs help—but he sees her expression and it satisfies him enough to let it go.

And maybe it's that gesture of his that finally causes something inside of her to snap. He has faith in her. Even without the promise he has faith that she will call him in a bind, and she is so unaccustomed to anyone having that sort of belief in her that she feels her eyes start to itch with an unfamiliar kind of tears. She takes a strand of hair and tugs at it, hard.

"Do you love me?"

It slips out. She isn't even embarrassed, not for a few seconds, because it just seems like a perfectly natural progression in her mind. And when he looks up at her he doesn't seem that surprised.

He purses his lips, obviously choosing his next words carefully, and reaches across the table to grab her hand. "I care about you," he says. "I understand you."

She pulls her hand away, feeling the heat in her face. "But you don't want me?"

"Brittany," he says, and he's using the teacher voice and shaking his head and she's overcome with the urge to snap at him, but she cannot justify that kind of behavior after last night.

"It's okay," she says. "You don't have to."

"That's not the point I'm trying to make," he says. He's staring at his own hand, bare on the table where she left it. Then he looks at her and his expression is almost pained, his eyes crinkled and his mouth in a set line. "It doesn't matter whether or not I . . . want you. I think—and Brittany, I don't want you to take this the wrong way."

Her posture straightens and she's absolutely certain by his tone of voice that she'll take this the wrong way.

"I think that maybe you are as . . . promiscuous as you are because you—you're looking for some sort of validation."

"Thanks, Dr. Schuester."

"Brittany."

The silence is heavy, like they're stuck in the car again, but there's not even a window to look out. She fixes her gaze on her bruised knees. She knows that he's right, but she doesn't want him to be. She doesn't want him to think that she's some sort of desperate little girl who can't handle herself and needs sex for approval.

Because it's different with him. She feels her knuckles tighten and her fingers ball into fists. It's so different, she wants to tell him, because she wants him, she really _wants_ him—and of all the men she's ever tried to seduce, he's the only one who has ever outright rejected her like this.

It's an impulse. A stupid one, because it does nothing but confirm his point. But she rises from the chair slowly and walks over to him, stands too close, and stares at him. Then she leans down and sits on his lap, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, resting her head in the crook of his neck. He's stiff as a board and she presses herself against him closer, nudging him with her nose, waiting for him to be the man he was in the car that day.

"Brittany," he says again, and his voice is much softer and has a huskier undertone to it.

"I don't think of you that way," she whispers. His body still isn't responding to hers so she runs a hand through his hair and asks, "Is that what you're afraid of?"

He relaxes a little but still doesn't touch her. "I'm not afraid."

Her voice sounds thin when she asks, "Then what?"

"I don't want you to do something you'll regret," he tells her.

"You're so young—"

"Not all that much younger than you."

"Too young," he says, as if he doesn't hear her. "You need some time. You need some time to move past this—"

"Too much time is going to pass," she says. She's losing control of the situation again. Her voice is starting to whine as the hopelessness of her case becomes clearer. "You'll find somebody else."

"I'm not looking for anybody else."

She draws back to look at him.

"I wasn't looking for anyone in the first place," he says, and the lines on his face seem deeper, weighed down with the events of the past few years. Brittany only knows vague details of his broken marriage and subsequent failures with other women but it all happened a year ago, and back then she didn't care. She didn't have any way to anticipate the way her heart races for him now.

"And I'm not looking for anyone in the meantime. I'm in . . . a weird place right now. We both are."

The words don't seem as condescending this time because he's speaking as if he regards them as equals. As if their situations are separately hindering them and similarly difficult to endure—as if they are still in this together even though they are apart. "It's only a year and a half," he says, offering her a small smile. "We'll see where we are then."

"It's forever," she moans.

"Because you're young. You'll see."

At the reemergence of his condescension she twists in his lap and compels him to face her. "I'm not going to change my mind," she insists, "if that's what you think. If that's why you're putting this off—"

"I'm not putting it off. I'm telling you we should _wait_."

"Wait?"

He nods.

"Wait," she repeats. "For this?" She leans in ever so slightly. He stares at her, as if to call her bluff, as if he doesn't believe she'll actually do it, and then she kisses him.

He gasps a little in her mouth and she almost smiles, because he should expect by now that if she's testing the waters she already fully intends to jump. His hands grab her shoulders, pulling her closer to him so fast that they practically smash against each other, but it's the good kind of impact, it's so solid and real. She feels her knees shaking with anticipating as she wraps her legs around his hips. She's never wanted somebody this badly, and her entire stomach swoops when she feels him lifting her up from the chair and carrying her out of the kitchen.

She doesn't know where they're going because for the first time she can remember, her eyes are closed as she's kissing him—she trusts him in ways she has never trusted anybody in her life, and she wraps her hands around the back of his neck and pushes his head closer to hers, willing him to understand that she wants every part of him.

He stops to kick open the kitchen door and at the sound of his foot hitting the wood she opens her eyes slightly, meeting his. He leans back to look at her.

"We shouldn't do this," he says, but she can tell he doesn't mean it by the glaze in his eyes staring at her. She presses her lips against his again and as they separate he breathes, "We should wait."

"Wait," she repeats, and kisses him again. She starts to trail down his chin with her lips, kissing his neck, and he arches back to let her. "I'm sick of waiting," she says, arching her body closer to his. "I'm sick of waiting to feel happy."

It doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't have to. Nothing is going to stop them now. He's moving again, walking through the living room, and he sets her down on the couch. It's only when she's completely under him and looks up at his face that his breath hitches and the glaze in his eyes slips away.

She grabs the collar of his shirt. "Please," she says.

He sees the desperation in her face, and maybe even feels the ache she has for him. He just stares at her for a moment, then his eyes close again he leans in. She bends toward him to meet him halfway, and the kiss is simple and sweet and warm.

When they break apart he puts a hand on her head, stroking her hair. He angles away from her and sits on the couch, then waits for her to do the same. She stares at him expectantly, already knowing what he's going to say.

"A year and a half isn't that long." He's still breathing hard enough that he can see his chest rising and falling between his words. "And I'll always be here."

"But not quite like this," she acknowledges.

He shakes his head. "Not like this. But I'll be here. Waiting."

It isn't what she wants to hear, but it's the next best thing. This is the man she is willing to wait for, she knows. This is the end of random hook-ups and asserting herself sexually to prove her worth. This is what it feels like to be loved.

She grabs his hand on impulse and he squeezes it. "Me too," she says.

After a few moments she scoots over to him and rests her head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around her and she sinks into him. She doesn't understand quite what Will Schuester is to her—whether he's her teacher, her lover, or just the first trustworthy man she's ever met. But it doesn't matter. Everything that has happened and everything she has yet to endure means nothing.

She has this. Whatever this is. And it feels a lot like home.

* * *

THE END.

THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS, you guys made my life. I honestly didn't think anybody would enjoy this in the slightest. The enthusiasm made my heart swell with joy. :)


End file.
